At the same time, my hand drops to the hilt of my dagger.
Just in case.
See, I’m not an idiot.
Heka strolls into the room, ignoring me. Instead, he scans avidly across the parchments.
“I’d rather that you left me alone to work,” he grumbles. “Interesting as it is to solve why you are here alone and unguarded, I have experiments that I am running and…” He stops and taps his clawed finger on the table in thought. “Lanlin must have told you about me. You have visited here. So, why are you here alone?”
“Why are you awake during the day?” I throw back, edging my hand toward the talisman behind my back. “How are you working and not resting?”
Heka straightens.
His eyes spark with sudden interest. “You’re also not sleeping. Maybe I have finally found a fellow spirit who recognizes how worthless sleep is. Think how much we can achieve if we only don’t waste it lying in bed?”
“I don’t think we have much choice in that.”
“Choice,” Heka sneers, snatching up a pen and pointing it at me. “A mage does not look at what is possible, but rather at what is impossible. Then he works out how he can wrest away control from the natural world into his own hands.”
To my shock, Heka draws a fast hieroglyph on the paper in front of him.
Instantly, the paper levitates off the table between us, before folding itself repeatedly into a paper dove.
Its wings flap, before it flies around my head.
I gasp in shock and delight, as the paper dove flies up to settle onto Heka’s shoulder.
“How…?” I breathe.
“Wrong question.” Heka points the pen at me again. “You witnessed it. Thehowwas my hand, this pen, ink, and a simple symbol. Thewhyis the fascinating part.”
Heka’s dark gaze is flat and cool but also enticing. I understand now why he was Lanlin’s favorite tutor.
“Thenwhy,” I try again, “don’t you want to sleep during the day?”
“Better.” Heka strokes over the head of his paper dove, which coos happily. “Because then I can study and run my more secret experiments in silence without the risk of interruption. I don’t need to have anything to do with the rest of the Blood Court. I have developed a potion that does away with the need for more than an hour or two of sleep.”
“Then why don’t you share that potion with the rest of your kingdom? On the moon, I’d have thought it would have made your army fucking invincible.”
“Why would I care about our army?” Heka looks genuinely bewildered. “My experiments are all that matter. Revealing the truth.”
Perhaps, there is such a thing as being too fanatical about studying. I’d been excited about learning more magic. But Heka appears to have learned too much.
He waves his hand. “Anyway, the potion has side effects. All magic has a cost. I think that your fae knows that.”
I bristle. “The iron bracelets were forced on him. He didn’t choose them.”
“Choice again.” Heka tilts his head. “You are caught up on that notion. The paper dove didn’tchooseto be created, but does that make it more or less alive now?”
When he moves his hand towards the dove’s neck, I sense what he is going to do but can’t stop him.
“Don’t,” I plead.
Heka twists the dove’s paper neck, however, breaking it, and in the same motion, transforming it back into an inanimate piece of parchment.
He smooths it out, placing it down onto the table.
“Monster,” I hiss.
